Three Drops of Honey
by gutsandglitter
Summary: "Pretending that nothing had happened was infinitely more difficult when nothing in fact had happened."
1. Chapter 1

The boys were still laughing by the time they reached the flat.

Sherlock flopped down on the sofa and wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes, while John sat down in front of his computer.

"Did you see the look on Anderson's face?" John asked. "One of these days that man is going to put your head on a plate."

"If Molly doesn't get to me first," Sherlock added dryly.

They both chuckled at this, even though John hated even the vague notion of Sherlock's death. He turned to the computer screen and opened the page for his blog, forcing the thought from his mind.

Sherlock sensed the discomfort in his friend. He didn't want to see that smile leave John's lips, so he lightly asked what he was going to title this blog entry as.

It was a success, and John's faced warmed up once again. "I haven't the foggiest. Know anything clever that rhymes with money laundering scheme?"

"Give me a minute."

This made John smile harder as he turned back to his computer screen to jot down some notes, he would save the true story-writing for later. The flat was quiet, save for the gentle sound of John's typing. It was a comfortable silence, very calm.

Finally Sherlock broke the peace by getting up and crossing to the kitchen. John could hear him fiddling with the kettle. He stopped typing and listened to Sherlock's movements in the kitchen. For all his elegance at crime scenes, Sherlock was rather on the clumsy side, and John heard him bump his head against the cabinet door at one point. He listened as Sherlock pulled two mugs from the cupboard and the kettle began to steam. John smiled as he pictured Sherlock in the kitchen, making tea for him exactly how John liked it: a dash of sugar and three drops of honey. Sherlock always rolled his eyes at this, he thought there was no point to sweetened tea, but he always made sure to make it exactly right. John began to type again when Sherlock entered the room. He watched as Sherlock's pale hand and wrist entered his periphery to set the mug down next to his computer.

"John, you do realize you still have some blood in your hair, don't you?"

"What?" John turned his head just as Sherlock reached out to wipe the red from the nape of his neck. His hand brushed against John's cheek by accident.

They both froze as their eyes met. Sherlock did not move his hand from John's cheek. John felt his heart catch in his throat. Slowly, he raised his own hand to cover the one on his face. They were both very still as they looked at each other, they were really looking at each other for the first time. Not analyzing each other, not searching for anything. Just looking and seeing.

"Why didn't you boys tell me you were home?" Mrs. Hudson cried, her voice cutting through the tension like an axe.

John and Sherlock jumped apart.

"The Detective Inspector rang for you Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson continued, unaware of what she had interrupted.

"Yes, I'm not surprised. I'll ring him straightaway," he said briskly, striding over to the phone.

John tried not to look as dumbstruck as he felt.


	2. Chapter 2

Pretending that nothing had happened was infinitely more difficult when nothing in fact had happened.

After Mrs. Hudson had walked in on…whatever it was that she had walked in on, Sherlock had been business as usual, running around solving cases like some sort of sociopathic superhero. It had been nearly three weeks, and John had become enormously frustrated with his impossible-to-read flatmate. He had been spending most of his time at work or at Sarah's, avoiding Sherlock and his poker face.

It had been two days since he had been to the flat, but he was in need of fresh underwear and socks. "I'll just pop by for a moment," he told himself. "Maybe Sherlock won't be in."

As soon as he crossed the threshold, he knew something was wrong. It was usually rather cluttered, but now it looked positively catastrophic. Sherlock's wall was riddled with bullet holes, and there were papers all over the place. It smelled awful as well.

"Sherlock!" John yelled, unable to disguise the panic in his voice. "Sherlock!"

He heard a thump and swung his head around.

"Hello Johnny boy," Sherlock slurred. His hair was greasy and matted, and he was wearing his pajamas, which were stained and rumpled. His eyes were bloodshot and moving rapidly back and forth, back and forth. His hands trembled and jumped at his sides as though he was being electrocuted.

"Sherlock, what the hell is going on?" John asked, now even more panicked.

Sherlock pulled his teeth back into a terrible grin and let out a hacking sort of laugh.

"I've just been having a bit of fun," he replied, clapping his hands together gleefully. John noticed the sweat on his brow and upper lip. "Sherlock, are you on drugs?" he asked incredulously.

Sherlock gave him a knowing look.

John couldn't believe this. When he had first moved in, Sherlock had hinted at having some sort of illegal substances in the flat, but John hadn't taken him seriously.

"I was just so painfully bored while you were away, I thought that maybe a bump or three or five might make things a bit more interesting," Sherlock said all in one breath.

John tried to wrap his head around this while Sherlock went over to his violin and started playing rapidly, maniacally jabbing the bow against the strings making an awful racket.

"Sherlock, have you eaten or slept while I was away?"

Sherlock made a disgusted face and played on with intense furor. At one point he twitched violently, smacking his head against the violin sharply. He did not seem to have any reaction to the pain, in fact it only made him play faster if that was possible. He seemed to be building it all up to some sort of cacophonous crescendo, and when he had reached it he jerked the bow away from the violin and threw it at the wall. He sat staring at the place the bow had hit the wall for several minutes. In that time John did the only thing he could do: he went into the kitchen and made a kettle of tea.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock was trembling when John reentered the room with the tea.

"John I-" the words sounded feeble and caught in his throat. An enormous spasm overcame Sherlock's body as he vomited on the floor.

John dropped the tray he was carrying as his friend shook and wretched for a solid minute before his body finally went limp.

John had seen his friend in horrifying situations before, ones that would have made an ordinary man shit his pants. Every time Sherlock looked down the barrel of a gun or wrestled with a 300 pound assassin, he always looked completely calm and composed, with that gleam of excitement in his eye. Now, his eyes were filled with fear.

"John," he said again, his voice very small.

John reached down and gently pressed his fingers to Sherlock's throat to check his pulse, which was racing.

"I'm calling an ambulance," he said, pulling out his phone and dialing the familiar number. As he spoke to the dispatcher, he felt a small tug and looked down. Sherlock was holding onto the bottom of John's jumper with two fingers as he stared hard at the wall across from him. He reached down and intertwined his fingers with his friend's. Sherlock gripped John's fingers tightly.

John hung up. He stood stock still for several moments, just watching Sherlock watching the wall. "Sherlock," he said softly. "Why?"

At first he thought that Sherlock hadn't heard him and he was going to pretend he hadn't asked. But then Sherlock turned to him with tears clouding his grey eyes.

"Because you left me," he whispered.


	4. Chapter 4

_Because you left me._

Throughout the ambulance ride and Sherlock's hospital admittance, those words rang through John's ears.

_Because you left me. _

Even when he closed his eyes, the scene played over and over on the back of his eyelids; _because you left me_ hanging over Sherlock's pale and quaking frame like a caption in a comic book.

John sat in the waiting room with the wives and mothers and sons and uncles, unable to define his relationship to the man in room 342. Friend? Associate? Lover?

He stopped himself at the last one. He had never truly understood what categorized one as a "lover". Yes, he loved Sherlock, more than anyone else on earth. And he felt that Sherlock loved him back. _Because you left me_ rang through his head once more. Did that make them lovers?

He did not have time to answer this. A perky young nurse came up to him and interrupted his train of thought. "Doctor Watson?"

John nodded.

She rattled off Sherlock's chart, mispronouncing enough words for John to figure out that it was her first day on the job.

He cut her off. "Is he going to be alright?" he asked warily.

She bit her lip, hurt at his rude interruption. "Yes. You can see him now," she said stuffily, turning on heel and storming off. He thought he heard her add the word "queer" under her breath, but he couldn't be sure.

_Miserable twat, won't last a month_, John thought to himself as he hurried to Sherlock's room.

He stopped dead at room 342. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath before turning the cold knob and entering the room.

Sherlock lay on the bed, looking even more pale and thin than usual. His eyes were closed, and the only noise in the room was the irritating beeps coming from the heart monitor. He looked so small in the bed, John couldn't help but start to cry. The world's greatest detective had been reduced to this, and it was all John's fault.

He shuffled over to the bed and took Sherlock's hand in his own. He brought the fragile white hand to his lips, and brushed them against the knuckles.

"I'll never leave you. Never again," he whispered.

Sherlock's thin lips twitched upwards, ever so slightly.

_**Fin**_


End file.
